I read this series of books for the first time in my senior year of high school (about five and a half years ago), after meeting a person who carried a towel around with him and asking him just why that was. He explained it was a Hitchhiker's Guide thing, to which I said, approximately, "A who in the what now?" Well. I promptly purchased the full five-book trilogy (um, yes) and devoured it within a couple weeks. Maybe just one. Maybe it was a few days. I don't remember, but it was rather quickly.
When I mentioned to my friend Nick (not the towel-carrier, in case that's not clear) a few weeks ago that I was going to re-read them, he warned me that they wouldn't hold up well to a second reading. I doubted him, but he was mostly right, at least with this first one. We'll see how the rest go, I suppose.
For those still going, "A who in the what now?", The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a British humor novel about travelling the galaxy. Sort of. The story starts off with our main protagonist, Arthur Dent, finding out that his house is going to be demolished by the local planning commission to make room for a bypass. He is understandably displeased, and has a lie-down in front the bulldozers to protect his house, at least until his friend Ford Prefect shows up to lead him off to the pub and inform him that the world is going to end in about twenty minutes. Then the Earth is vaporized. Meanwhile, we meet Zaphod Beeblebrox, President of the Imperial Galactic Government, who, at the unveiling of a fancy new spaceship that he then steals. Then Ford and Arthur have a series of improbable adventures, having managed to hitch a ride on the spaceship that eliminated the Earth, and eventually meet up with Zaphod and have more improbable adventures.
There's not much of a plot, and the humor really depends on its unexpectedness, which is where the book falls apart on a second read. It's still funny, but not nearly as much so as it was five years ago. Alas.
Rating: 8/10
(Summer Lovin' Challenge)
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Showing posts with label aliens. Show all posts
Showing posts with label aliens. Show all posts
28 July 2009
The Android's Dream, by John Scalzi (23 July — 25 July)
So, remember when I said that I'd never experienced a story/cover mismatch that bothered me? Well, now I have, and this is it. The Android's Dream cover looks like this, and there are absolutely no androids in the novel! I was expecting androids, people.
But that's not to say that this wasn't an excellent book, because it was. And it was a good way to break up the Harry Potter hullabaloo, even if it's really just jumping from one obsession to another (I love the Scalzi). And while it wasn't about androids, it was about sheep, which is apparently another Philip K. Dick reference I need to go learn about.
Anyway. This is one of those books where the first lines just really set the tone for the story, so here they are: "Dirk Moeller didn't know if he could fart his way into a major diplomatic incident. But he was ready to find out."
Yes, really. And he does succeed, though perhaps not in the way he thought he would, and it falls to the State Department of Earth to rectify the slight against the Nidu race, one of their closest allies. Oh, dear. To do so, the Earth's government must find and procure one sheep of the Android's Dream variety (with electric blue wool, of course) for the Nidu ruler's coronation ceremony, which cannot happen without such a sheep. Unfortunately, someone out there knows this and has been killing all such sheep. But then Harris Creek and his truly intelligent computer (which has the brain of Harris's long-dead best friend, no, really) find the last remaining sheep, which is good, but Creek and the sheep are being well followed by some people who would like to see the sheep gone. So they go on a cruise. Really. And there's more, but then you'd just get confused and not read this book, and I strongly advise against that.
This book is really funny and packed with pop-culture references of awesome and is in that spectrum of weird where, sure, this story could totally happen, maybe. I call it perfect light reading for these oddly cold summer days.
Rating: 8/10
But that's not to say that this wasn't an excellent book, because it was. And it was a good way to break up the Harry Potter hullabaloo, even if it's really just jumping from one obsession to another (I love the Scalzi). And while it wasn't about androids, it was about sheep, which is apparently another Philip K. Dick reference I need to go learn about.
Anyway. This is one of those books where the first lines just really set the tone for the story, so here they are: "Dirk Moeller didn't know if he could fart his way into a major diplomatic incident. But he was ready to find out."
Yes, really. And he does succeed, though perhaps not in the way he thought he would, and it falls to the State Department of Earth to rectify the slight against the Nidu race, one of their closest allies. Oh, dear. To do so, the Earth's government must find and procure one sheep of the Android's Dream variety (with electric blue wool, of course) for the Nidu ruler's coronation ceremony, which cannot happen without such a sheep. Unfortunately, someone out there knows this and has been killing all such sheep. But then Harris Creek and his truly intelligent computer (which has the brain of Harris's long-dead best friend, no, really) find the last remaining sheep, which is good, but Creek and the sheep are being well followed by some people who would like to see the sheep gone. So they go on a cruise. Really. And there's more, but then you'd just get confused and not read this book, and I strongly advise against that.
This book is really funny and packed with pop-culture references of awesome and is in that spectrum of weird where, sure, this story could totally happen, maybe. I call it perfect light reading for these oddly cold summer days.
Rating: 8/10
11 July 2009
Zoe's Tale, by John Scalzi (5 July — 6 July)
I didn't intend to re-read this book so soon... but as mentioned in my last post, I was on vacation and ran out of books! I had brought this book just for Scott to read, which he did and of course he loved it, but when our plane got held up in a taxi line in Atlanta, I "resigned" myself to reading it.
In case you don't remember, I read this book in December and enjoyed it enough to go back to the beginning of the series and read the other three. Then, when I got to The Last Colony, I thought it might have been better to have read this one last. Well, now that I've read it both first and last, as it were, I would definitely say it's better read last. It certainly stands alone and is awesome at it, but it makes infinitely more sense having read the first three books. Especially I would recommend reading The Last Colony and Zoe's Tale in quick succession, because the story is so much fuller that way.
Also, I cried again, at the same two points in the story, so either I have overactive tear ducts or Scalzi is a damn fine writer. Possibly both.
Rating: 8/10, again, because it's still excellent!
(Summer Lovin' Challenge)
In case you don't remember, I read this book in December and enjoyed it enough to go back to the beginning of the series and read the other three. Then, when I got to The Last Colony, I thought it might have been better to have read this one last. Well, now that I've read it both first and last, as it were, I would definitely say it's better read last. It certainly stands alone and is awesome at it, but it makes infinitely more sense having read the first three books. Especially I would recommend reading The Last Colony and Zoe's Tale in quick succession, because the story is so much fuller that way.
Also, I cried again, at the same two points in the story, so either I have overactive tear ducts or Scalzi is a damn fine writer. Possibly both.
Rating: 8/10, again, because it's still excellent!
(Summer Lovin' Challenge)
20 May 2009
Agent to the Stars, by John Scalzi (18 May — 19 May)
I think I've mentioned before that I rather like John Scalzi's work, from his Old Man's War series to his wonderful blog. So when I saw this book, his first (but not first published) novel, for 25 cents at a street fair, well, I couldn't help but purchase it. And Zoe's Tale, for another quarter. If only the rest of his work had been there too!
Anyway. Agent to the Stars is fun and fluffy. Tom Stein is an agent to a variety of Hollywood "stars" — one real star, a few decent actors, and a bunch of riff-raff. After landing his star, Michelle Beck, a $12 million contract for some crap movie, Stein gets a meeting with the boss, all by his lonesome. His assistant isn't even allowed in! This is because boss dude Carl wants Tom to represent a new client... a blob alien called Joshua. Joshua and his blob-alien kin have travelled to Earth to make friends and have decided that since American entertainment rules the world, why not get an American entertainment agent to represent their interests? Of course.
The plot is a liiiiittle ridiculous, but it's throughly entertaining if you don't think about it too hard. Which is as it should be. :) I hope that my hypothetical first novel is (hypothetically) as awesome as Scalzi's was.
Rating: 8/10
Anyway. Agent to the Stars is fun and fluffy. Tom Stein is an agent to a variety of Hollywood "stars" — one real star, a few decent actors, and a bunch of riff-raff. After landing his star, Michelle Beck, a $12 million contract for some crap movie, Stein gets a meeting with the boss, all by his lonesome. His assistant isn't even allowed in! This is because boss dude Carl wants Tom to represent a new client... a blob alien called Joshua. Joshua and his blob-alien kin have travelled to Earth to make friends and have decided that since American entertainment rules the world, why not get an American entertainment agent to represent their interests? Of course.
The plot is a liiiiittle ridiculous, but it's throughly entertaining if you don't think about it too hard. Which is as it should be. :) I hope that my hypothetical first novel is (hypothetically) as awesome as Scalzi's was.
Rating: 8/10
20 March 2009
The Last Colony, by John Scalzi (19 March — 20 March)
Another good book! Hooray!
This is the last book for me (but not the actual last book) of the Old Man's War series. I started with the previously linked book and then went back to the beginning to see what I'd missed. A lot, apparently. :)
Anyway, this book tells the last story of the original trilogy, which is the formation of the colony of Roanoke — aptly named. John Perry and Jane Sagan, our friends from the previous books, are put in charge of the colonization as it is being done not by humans from Earth, as is the usual MO, but by previous colonists, a first for the Colonial Union. John and Jane have to convince 2500 people of 10 different homeworlds to like each other, and it's not easy. And, of course, when they do start figuring it out, other things come in to play, like the fact that the Colonial Union has been lying to everyone about the nature of the colony. And that there're some people out there who want to destroy the colony. And that maybe it's okay if that happens. Oh boy.
This was very interesting to read after reading Zoe's Tale, since that book is just a retelling of this one from Zoe's point of view. I can see why Scalzi wanted to write that second one... although this story is very good in and of itself, there are a lot of weird jumps and convenient things happening that I could forgive because I knew what happened by having read the other book. If I did it again, though, I'd read them in order.
Rating: 8/10
(Countdown Challenge: 2007, Support Your Local Library Challenge)
This is the last book for me (but not the actual last book) of the Old Man's War series. I started with the previously linked book and then went back to the beginning to see what I'd missed. A lot, apparently. :)
Anyway, this book tells the last story of the original trilogy, which is the formation of the colony of Roanoke — aptly named. John Perry and Jane Sagan, our friends from the previous books, are put in charge of the colonization as it is being done not by humans from Earth, as is the usual MO, but by previous colonists, a first for the Colonial Union. John and Jane have to convince 2500 people of 10 different homeworlds to like each other, and it's not easy. And, of course, when they do start figuring it out, other things come in to play, like the fact that the Colonial Union has been lying to everyone about the nature of the colony. And that there're some people out there who want to destroy the colony. And that maybe it's okay if that happens. Oh boy.
This was very interesting to read after reading Zoe's Tale, since that book is just a retelling of this one from Zoe's point of view. I can see why Scalzi wanted to write that second one... although this story is very good in and of itself, there are a lot of weird jumps and convenient things happening that I could forgive because I knew what happened by having read the other book. If I did it again, though, I'd read them in order.
Rating: 8/10
(Countdown Challenge: 2007, Support Your Local Library Challenge)
08 March 2009
The Ghost Brigades, by John Scalzi (6 March — 8 March)
I finished up this book really early this morning (really, how does one wake up at 7:30 EDT on the first day of Daylight Savings when she doesn't usually wake up until 8 or 9 in the first place?), and I must say that I was pretty much ready to move on once I did. I liked the book, for sure, but it suffers from that second-book-in-a-series problem of wanting to keep the story moving but also wanting to get people ready for a third book. And maybe I'm too ready for the third book, since the book that started me on this whole thing (the fourth in the series) is a retelling of it.
But it was good! Scalzi abandons John Perry for the moment to focus on Jane Sagan and, more particularly, a new Special Forces soldier called Jared Dirac. Dirac is special because he was created to house the consciousness of one Charles Boutin, who turned traitor on humanity but conveniently left a copy of his consciousness behind (he does consciousness research, it's not that far-fetched...). It doesn't take, and Dirac is just trained as a new SF recruit under Sagan, who knows his history and is understandably upset and skeptical about his abilities.
Thus the first half of the book takes a good look at the Special Forces (also called the Ghost Brigades) and what it means to be part of it, with lots of speculation about the soullessness of both the Special Forces soldiers and those who made them. Then, when (spoiler alert?) Dirac finally unlocks a bit of Boutin's consciousness, it's time to go track down the traitor and figure out whether Dirac or Boutin or anyone, really, is the ethical person in this shenanigan.
Rating: 7/10
(Support Your Local Library Challenge)
But it was good! Scalzi abandons John Perry for the moment to focus on Jane Sagan and, more particularly, a new Special Forces soldier called Jared Dirac. Dirac is special because he was created to house the consciousness of one Charles Boutin, who turned traitor on humanity but conveniently left a copy of his consciousness behind (he does consciousness research, it's not that far-fetched...). It doesn't take, and Dirac is just trained as a new SF recruit under Sagan, who knows his history and is understandably upset and skeptical about his abilities.
Thus the first half of the book takes a good look at the Special Forces (also called the Ghost Brigades) and what it means to be part of it, with lots of speculation about the soullessness of both the Special Forces soldiers and those who made them. Then, when (spoiler alert?) Dirac finally unlocks a bit of Boutin's consciousness, it's time to go track down the traitor and figure out whether Dirac or Boutin or anyone, really, is the ethical person in this shenanigan.
Rating: 7/10
(Support Your Local Library Challenge)
05 February 2009
Children of God, by Mary Doria Russell (2 February — 5 February)
Children of God is the follow-up to Russell's The Sparrow, one of my favorite books of last year and all time. It picks up shortly after the last book left off, with Emilio Sandoz still recovering from what he believes God did to him and trying to reconcile that with his life on Earth, where forty years passed by while he was gone.
The Society of Jesuits is set on sending a second mission to Rakhat to try again, as it were, and attempt to open up trade agreements with the Jana'ata that will be mutually beneficial. The Father General wants Emilio to return to the planet, but Emilio, understandably, is only willing to train people to go in his stead. The Father General, ever wily, figures out some way to get Emilio on that ship.
Meanwhile, back on Rakhat, we find out that Emilio wasn't the last human left on the planet after all, and also that that human seems to have helped engineer a Runa revolution, changing Runa and Juna'ata society for the better, but also for the worse.
The book is told in the back-and-forth style of The Sparrow, but I don't think it worked as well as in the first novel. It felt a little too jarring to keep zooming between the planets and their timeframes that didn't line up, and then also to go back and forth between the on-planet present and the on-planet future looking back. But it was still a good book, probably more so if you've read the first one.
Rating: 8/10
(Support Your Local Library Challenge)
The Society of Jesuits is set on sending a second mission to Rakhat to try again, as it were, and attempt to open up trade agreements with the Jana'ata that will be mutually beneficial. The Father General wants Emilio to return to the planet, but Emilio, understandably, is only willing to train people to go in his stead. The Father General, ever wily, figures out some way to get Emilio on that ship.
Meanwhile, back on Rakhat, we find out that Emilio wasn't the last human left on the planet after all, and also that that human seems to have helped engineer a Runa revolution, changing Runa and Juna'ata society for the better, but also for the worse.
The book is told in the back-and-forth style of The Sparrow, but I don't think it worked as well as in the first novel. It felt a little too jarring to keep zooming between the planets and their timeframes that didn't line up, and then also to go back and forth between the on-planet present and the on-planet future looking back. But it was still a good book, probably more so if you've read the first one.
Rating: 8/10
(Support Your Local Library Challenge)
11 December 2008
Zoe's Tale, by John Scalzi (7 December — 11 December)
I'd seen this book making its way around the various blogs I read, and everyone seemed to like it, so I picked it up from the library. It's not quite what I was expecting, but it was definitely good.
This is a book in Scalzi's Old Man's War series, but I haven't read those so I can't comment too much on how it fits in, except that Scalzi writes in his acknowledgements that the book runs parallel to the events of The Last Colony. Sweet, I guess?
This novel is the story of Zoë Boutin Perry, a teenager who is part of the first colony of colonists — where her planet was settled by people from Earth, she and a bunch of people from other planets are settling a new one. The problems start when the Colonial Union, who is sanctioning this colonization, informs the travellers that they are being hunted by a group called the Conclave who don't want anybody but themselves colonizing anything.
Things get worse from there, with all of the colonists forced to give up on electronics (gasp!) and the weird animals of the new planet — Roanoke — trying to kill the settlers and vice versa. Zoë is also told by her bodyguards (read the book!) that she may personally be being hunted, so she has to step up for some intensive combat training in addition to school and founding a civilization without a PDA.
I liked the book quite a bit; it was very light-hearted and definitely sounded like it was narrated by a teenager. And Scalzi really makes the characters real. I had cried twice by the end of the book, and I don't care what you think! I will definitely have to pick up Old Man's War at some point in the future.
Rating: 8/10
(Countdown Challenge: 2008)
This is a book in Scalzi's Old Man's War series, but I haven't read those so I can't comment too much on how it fits in, except that Scalzi writes in his acknowledgements that the book runs parallel to the events of The Last Colony. Sweet, I guess?
This novel is the story of Zoë Boutin Perry, a teenager who is part of the first colony of colonists — where her planet was settled by people from Earth, she and a bunch of people from other planets are settling a new one. The problems start when the Colonial Union, who is sanctioning this colonization, informs the travellers that they are being hunted by a group called the Conclave who don't want anybody but themselves colonizing anything.
Things get worse from there, with all of the colonists forced to give up on electronics (gasp!) and the weird animals of the new planet — Roanoke — trying to kill the settlers and vice versa. Zoë is also told by her bodyguards (read the book!) that she may personally be being hunted, so she has to step up for some intensive combat training in addition to school and founding a civilization without a PDA.
I liked the book quite a bit; it was very light-hearted and definitely sounded like it was narrated by a teenager. And Scalzi really makes the characters real. I had cried twice by the end of the book, and I don't care what you think! I will definitely have to pick up Old Man's War at some point in the future.
Rating: 8/10
(Countdown Challenge: 2008)
15 September 2008
The Sparrow, by Mary Doria Russell (9 September − 13 September)
Read this book. Seriously.
The Sparrow mostly follows the story of Emilio Sandoz, a Jesuit priest who, through coincidences (or God's work?) ends up on a mission to a just-discovered planet near Alpha Centauri. The book follows two timelines, one starting when Sandoz returns to Earth, as the last surviving member of the crew, several years after some very embarrassing and horrifying information about Sandoz has made its own way back. He is to report on the mission to his superiors, but has to get over what happened to him before he can face the other priests.
The other timeline starts back at the beginning, with the events leading up to the discovery of the planet, then details the mission and what happens after the crew lands on Rakhat. This second timeline slowly fills in the large number of blanks left in the first, and helps make Sandoz's alleged crimes understandable.
I don't want to be too specific here, because a lot of what I loved about the book was the way Russell would bring in a fact without explanation, causing me to say, "What? When did that happen? Why?" and then a little while later the narrative would answer my question.
I loved this book a whole ridiculous bunch. It's an interesting take on what would happen if we found life on another planet and went out to meet it, and if meeting that life would go just how we might expect it. I'm a big fan of the dual timeline, and Russell uses this to her great advantage.
The one thing I didn't like terribly much is that the ending happens so fast − you spend a lot of time leisurely following the stories and then all of a sudden Russell is throwing in forced exposition in order to tie up the story. I would gladly have read another hundred pages (the book is about 400); the rushed ending was unnecessary and made the religious tie-ins at the end seem a bit trite.
Rating: 9.5/10
The Sparrow mostly follows the story of Emilio Sandoz, a Jesuit priest who, through coincidences (or God's work?) ends up on a mission to a just-discovered planet near Alpha Centauri. The book follows two timelines, one starting when Sandoz returns to Earth, as the last surviving member of the crew, several years after some very embarrassing and horrifying information about Sandoz has made its own way back. He is to report on the mission to his superiors, but has to get over what happened to him before he can face the other priests.
The other timeline starts back at the beginning, with the events leading up to the discovery of the planet, then details the mission and what happens after the crew lands on Rakhat. This second timeline slowly fills in the large number of blanks left in the first, and helps make Sandoz's alleged crimes understandable.
I don't want to be too specific here, because a lot of what I loved about the book was the way Russell would bring in a fact without explanation, causing me to say, "What? When did that happen? Why?" and then a little while later the narrative would answer my question.
I loved this book a whole ridiculous bunch. It's an interesting take on what would happen if we found life on another planet and went out to meet it, and if meeting that life would go just how we might expect it. I'm a big fan of the dual timeline, and Russell uses this to her great advantage.
The one thing I didn't like terribly much is that the ending happens so fast − you spend a lot of time leisurely following the stories and then all of a sudden Russell is throwing in forced exposition in order to tie up the story. I would gladly have read another hundred pages (the book is about 400); the rushed ending was unnecessary and made the religious tie-ins at the end seem a bit trite.
Rating: 9.5/10
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